This invention relates to an electronic still camera for recording a still picture on a magnetic disc.
A still camera operates in a field record mode or in a frame record mode. In the field record mode, for one object, a video signal for one field is recorded on the magnetic disc; and in the frame record mode, a video signal for one frame (or two fields) is recorded on the magnetic disc. When the magnetic disc makes one revolution for the time period corresponding to one field, in the field record mode one picture is recorded (one track) with one revolution; and in the frame record mode, one picture is recorded (on two tracks) with two revolutions. Accordingly, in the field record mode, the number of pictures recorded on one magnetic disc is twice as many as that recorded in the frame record mode. However, in the field record mode, the number of horizontal scanning lines is half of that in the frame record mode, and, therefore, the picture recorded in the field record mode has lower resolution than one recorded in the frame record mode.
In addition, there are provided a normal mode and a high-band mode for an electronic still camera. In the high-band mode, the frequency modulated (FM) carrier of the luminance signal has a higher and wider frequency band than in the normal mode. Hence, the horizontal resolution is higher.
The picture quality factor Q (%) with respect to the number of horizontal scanning lines and the recording (transmission) bandwidth is, for example, shown in FIG. 2.
In the conventional electronic still camera, the field/frame record mode and the normal/high-band mode can be set independently of each other. Therefore, a difficulty oftentimes occurs in that even though the high-band mode has been selected, the field record mode is not switched over to the frame record mode. Consequently, the recording operation is performed in both the high-band mode and the field record mode, thus resulting in increased horizontal resolution but decreased vertical resolution. Therefore, overall resolution is unbalanced, and, accordingly, the effect of the high-band mode is reduced.
In view of the foregoing, an object of this invention is to eliminate errors causing a picture to be recorded with poor picture quality, resulting from the field record mode not being switched to a frame record mode, even though the high-band mode has been selected.